1. Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to devices and systems useful as surgical microscopes.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Microscopes, including surgical microscopes used in the operating room in human and animal surgery, and laboratory microscopes, offer the user a magnified, stereoscopic view of the selected field. While these microscopes are successful in providing a magnified view to the user, they do not allow for the simultaneous view of data, including both real-time streaming data and non-real time data, into the viewer's field (see FIG. 1: the actual microscope view of the surgical field 12, and the ‘black space’ 10 surrounding the microscopic view).
Most microscopes include two eyepieces, one for the right eye and one for the left, and both are focused on the same field (usually with separate light paths, thus creating a stereoscopic, three-dimensional view). The final image seen by the user of the microscope is fused from the right and left eyepieces to form a single view which is a circle 12, which is referred to herein as the “microscope field”. This circle is surrounded by an area of “black space” 10 which is included in the final image seen by the user of a microscope, the combination of which creates the “viewer's field”. This single microscope field and black space is derived from the fusion of two images (one seen by the right eye and one by the left eye).
The black space 10 is not currently utilized in microscope designs. In the application of surgical microscopes, the utilization of this space in a novel way would allow for real-time intra-operative feedback (including real time and non-real time data, as described in further detail below) to appear in the black space and be viewed by the surgeon in real-time during surgery, but no such devices are currently available.
In the specialty of ophthalmic surgery, the surgeon currently operates by looking through the eyepieces of a surgical microscope, thus viewing the surgical field (in this case, a patient's eye) in higher magnification. This surgical field equates to the microscope field as described above and is surrounded by a black space, ultimately creating the viewer's field as described above. However, the use of microscopes has historically created a problem for surgeons as their access to, and view of, data while operating is limited to whatever image appears in the viewer's field. In the aforementioned example of ophthalmic surgery, the devices used by the surgeon during surgery are inserted into the eye and connected to external machinery that drives the devices. Each of these devices has various parameters (e.g., vacuum power, cutting speed, aspiration, etc.) that are controlled by foot pedals operated by the surgeon's feet. Each of these parameters, which must be continuously monitored during the surgery, change in real time (i.e., in numerical values) and are currently displayed on one or more external displays, which is not in direct sight of the surgeon while he or she is looking through the microscope to operate.
As such, the current technology does not provide surgeons with real time access to parameters that are important to the surgery while they are looking through the surgical microscope. This leaves surgeons to rely on a nurse or other assistant to continually read the parameters from the external display device out loud to the surgeon. Further, under the current technology, the surgeon is unable to simultaneously view a magnetic resonance image (MRI), computed tomography image (CT), or any other image or piece of data from a patient's medical record, while he or she is looking through the microscope while operating. This prevents the surgeon from viewing essential data and from evaluating diagnostic studies while he or she is operating, creating a further limitation with the use of microscopes in surgery and elsewhere.